Eps 025: An Emotional Business: Your Clients, Your Team and Your Own, with Bobbi Daniels

(Machine Transcript) I think it's a lost art, though. I think people don't realize and I hear a lot that people hate their job and all. I got to go to work on Monday, and I say that's that's really sad because it's always a choice. No matter what your job is, it's always a choice what you're doing. And you should find something you really love. I get up in the morning, I can't wait. I can't I'm excited every day. And so I feel sad for the culture that hasn't found that.

I I think one of the things, whether people are in a business that isn't working for them or they're in a career that isn't working for them, we don't have to stay in one spot. If a business isn't working, we can do things to fix it. If you're in a career that doesn't work, you can change jobs, you can change careers, and it's not necessarily going to happen tomorrow, but imagine being in the same position in three years time.

Welcome to the she leads business show, where I shine this butt light on female owners of growing small and medium sized businesses. You're in the right place if you want to ditch the stress and firefighting, stop working too many hours despite having team members, and never compete on price again. I'm Una Doyle, founder of Creative Creative Flow. I'm a speaker, business strategist and impact coach. Business owners hire me to help them to build a business they could sell tomorrow, but they probably don't want to because it's highly profitable. It's fun to run because they and their team are in creative Creative Flow and they get to make a bigger impact on the world. In every episode, myself and my guests share the strategies, stories, and wisdom to help you to achieve this too. Now let's get on with the show.

Hello, and welcome to Sheedy's business today. I am very excited to welcome Bobbi Daniels of Storp handler central. Bobbi, welcome.

Hi. Good to be here.

Oh, great to have you here. And I'm really looking forward to diving into your story and how you got to where you are today and let's have a closer look at your business as well. So, Bobbi, before we get into the business side of things, I always like to get to know the person behind the business. So tell me about yourself. So where did you grow up and are you part of a big family or a small family?

Yeah, so I'm actually one of four. I'm the first born girl, so I have a brother and a sister who are younger than me. So four depends what you consider a big family. But it was big enough. Yeah, we haven't moved. I didn't move much after college or grade school. I stayed pretty much 15 minutes local to where I grew up at.

Yeah, been telling where I was busy.

So we are in South Jersey. New Jersey.

What you say was your favorite thing about school?

School? I think comprehensive reading was where I excelled the most.

What kind of things do you like to read?

Now? It's all about storks and business and entrepreneurial shift, but back then a lot of fiction was what I was into.

Fantastic. I always look when I have a holiday and I load up my Kindle with loads of books and then I read them when I'm traveling, I read them by the pool. I can quite easily get through five books in a week. You said that you were the eldest. I'm at the other end of scale, so I'm at the youngest. And I know there's quite often things with the eldest, but they often are more responsible. Maybe there's an onus on them to take more responsibility. Did you find Russ in your family?

Yes, and my brother still jokes with me, saying I was meant to be the boss boss from the beginning. So I do think there is a birth hierarchy that does come into play with business owners and entrepreneurial ship. You naturally fall into that position to be the responsible one, to be the caretaker, to be the one that watches over all things and knows the things that mom and dad don't know. And that protector role was from the beginning. My brother and I are 18 months apart, so it happened very quickly. I don't remember a time where I wasn't responsible for somebody else, if that makes sense. And then at four, my sister was born and we still joke. I felt like she was my baby and still is my baby, so, yeah, I think it just plays into that natural role that I think I was meant to fill.

Fantastic. How did that play out in your schooling or any challenges that you have growing up?

School was a different thing for me. I was a child with high anxiety and I think that played in a little bit because in home life I did have a lot more control, especially being the oldest, and then a lot of anxiety in an atmosphere where there was little control as a child in a school environment. In my teenage years, I actually got very sick and so that kind of spiraled more of much less control and my schooling wasn't as atypical for a normal student. Yeah.

So is that you were to able to go to school?

Yeah. So in the four years of high school, there were two years in which I had to be more home schooled than being able to be in school just because of lack of the in and out and doctors appointments and missing time and being ill. So, yeah, it definitely played into that. But on the reverse side, as an adult, I think that it's led to really taking ownership of all that I did and all that I do. So it worked out for me.

Great. I'd love to know a bit more about that. So tell me more about how being home schooled for most of two years led to you taking more ownership in your business.

Yeah. So when you're home schooled, there's not group projects, there's not times with friends. It's work. It's work and it's having to figure out what works best for you. So instead of having history at 930 in the morning, maybe 930 in the morning, was a time that I wasn't feeling well. So I would have to really leverage the times of the days that I felt well and be very productive during those times that I felt, because I didn't know what the rest of the day would mean. So there was no slacking, there was no procrastination, there was figure out what works for you and leverage it because you can do it. And so that mindset of I wasn't just going to sit back and be a victim of my circumstance played into every part of me today.

Fantastic. I love what you just said there. I'm not going to be a victim of my circumstance. I think way too many people allow that to happen. So that's fantastic. At such a young age that you made that decision, is that something that was encouraged with people around you? Did you see that attitude in family members or other people who inspired you?

Yes and no. Most of my family are all nurses now, so my mother was a very nurturing environment, and if I told her I couldn't do it, she would have let me not do it. In that way, my mom would have just taken care of it for me as moms, I think, do. My father had a different kind of background. He lost his dad very young, and having his family was very much just so much of what he always wanted and loved that he was experiencing. But he had this you don't quit attitude, and that was really like the family motto, there was no quitting, you don't quit. And as an adult, we've spun that a little bit. Sometimes it's not about quitting, sometimes it's understanding it wasn't for you and being able to say that you don't have to see everything you start through. And so I think having the mix and the push there of you don't have to do it and you have to do it, was very confusing at the time. But the practice that I put into play now in my everyday life is very much because of that push and pull.

Right. It's so interesting how we learn different things from different people, isn't it?

Yeah. And I think it's hard when you're that age because you don't have the concrete experience of life yet to really know that just because your parents think something or this is their philosophy, doesn't mean that it's meant to be yours, and it doesn't mean that it was wrong, and it doesn't mean that it was right. They do the best they can with what they have. And it's your job as your next generation to continue to find things that work better in this generation, in this time, absolutely.

I love it. What comes to mind is I was on my way to visit my parents. It's gone back a few years, they passed away a couple of years ago and I picked up the book A New Earth by Echo Tole and I started reading it. As I said, I love reading when I'm traveling. And I just burst out laughing on the plane and my husband Steve, who was like, what are you laughing at? And they said, oh, it says in here, if you think you're spiritually evolved, go and stay with your parents for a week. Because when we're around family, then it's so easy for patterns from childhood to just kick in automatically, isn't it?

Yeah. And I think if you have a triggering event through your childhood that you already are being put into that situation, that's a reminder. And depending what you've dealt with or haven't dealt with, like, here it is in your face. And parents have a hard ability to disconnect from the fact that they are the parents. So there's that hierarchy again. So if you are in a position such as myself now, where I'm making the calls and I evolve my life and my business around how it works for me and that's also not just my strengths, but my weaknesses. And then put in a position where you have parents that are trying to redirect you because that is naturally what we are made to do. But you're an adult now. Yes. It can be a spiritual awakening, for sure.

Definitely. So what do you like to do in your spare time?

I want to be honest. I'm a workaholic because I love what I do. My spare time for me is about being on Pinterest and reading blogs about decorating and new ways to let that release go. And I'm a mom, so the two combined, I make the business and motherhood really work, that there's not a ton of spare time around here.

Yeah. Would you say that you're getting the self care that you need?

nning my local business since: 2018

Right, I'm really pleased to hear that. I think it's so challenging a lot of the time for any business person to if they don't prioritize that time, if it isn't in the calendar, then it tends not to happen. So I think all too often people leave the self care, oh, when I finished work, then I'll do that. No, actually that's got to be a priority, I think.

Entrepreneurial ship and when you run your own business, it actually sets you up for that success, if that's what you really want, is the thing. Because just like I talked about having a good point of the day for me to be able to do my school work, it's the same thing. Like mornings are more productive for me and making sure I get to the gym. If I say I'm getting there 430, we might as well just say I'm not going oh, making your day built around what really works for you so you can get all of the things done is one of the biggest bonuses. It's why most of us do it, it's for the flexibility, the time. So there's really no excuse on why you're not taking care of yourself and if it's because you need more time for the business, that comes naturally from taking care of yourself.

n thinking time. They will be: 10:00

A little bit of both. It depends how much personal I'm getting with it. But, yeah, I very much love decorating my own home in my own space. That kind of goes into self care for me as well. Making sure you'll see I have storks literally, like, all over my house because it's a symbolic not just for what my business is, but there's a lot of symbolism in a store and what it means and what it keeps me connected to my mission, my purpose, my being, and the evolution of the project. And just having storks around me is how it got to be, like, what it is, the final image. And that's just because it was there and I kept seeing it and kept evolving with it. But, yeah, so pinterest interior decorating is, like, really fun for me, anything that involves party decorating and then, of course, the storks. So a lot of times, because it is a very different product, I will have an idea, but I can't put a texture to it, I can't put the color palette to it. So I use pinterest and sources like that to put together my inspiration board to be able to take to my designers and start explaining the vision I see for this next piece of the store.

Fantastic. Before we move any further, what I'd love you to do is just explain what your business is, because I don't know that this business exists in the UK. I might be wrong, but it isn't something I had actually heard of until we spoke. So, yeah. Would you please explain what Handler Central is all about?

Yes, sure. Store handler Central is a wholesale trade only for profit business. So we sell storks that are about five and a half, six foot tall and yard cards. And those are decorative items for the lawn. It's the best way to put it. So storks are most commonly used for when a new baby is born, to be a birth announcement on the front lawn. We also do them inside for baby showers. Gender reveals they can be used for too. I don't know if that's a thing where you guys are, but definitely a thing here still. So the store itself stands for our rentals range from five to seven days. Some people like three. And then the store holds a keepsake bundle on the beach that has babies first name, middle name, weight length, date of birth. And then the parents keep that at the end of the rental. So I started a rental business here in New Jersey. After my daughter was born, I'd went three years of infertility, finally had a baby girl, stork was on the lawn. And I did some research and was like, you know what? This is a very symbolic traditional thing that's been around here for 100 years. People have been putting some type of birth announcement on the lawn and there's not enough people doing it. This is not a saturated market. And so we started locally. I did a lot of product testing, just a lot of different things, and my business has just exploded here. Rental wise been very successful and I said this is something people need not only for the part of the flexibility and the time, but there was a lot of things that need to be fixed of what the bird was before we modernized it. I'm only five foot, so we needed to make it in a way that a five foot woman could put these birds in the lawn and do the thing. So we changed a lot of things to really work for our market. So store Candler Central is basically packaged for selling this product and kind of the strategy around how we got started and what works for us and that kind of thing for starting a rental business. We promote a lot for moms that would like to stay home with their little ones because I think that's the it's an ideal thing to be able to be home if that's what you want to do. But we find that a lot of our store handlers are actually grand moms. So after the empty nest has occurred, this helps them tap into that emotional piece of what motherhood was and what it means to be a part of someone else's. It's almost like handing that paton, like you stand on a lawn to a new family that day who's coming home. And no matter, I have done thousands upon thousands of storks and no matter how many, it still brings me to tears. And even saying it almost brings me to tears.

I know I'm feeling this, I'm feeling opinion.

It's just one of the most beautiful moments because it's so quiet and if you do it early morning where the sun is like coming up and it's something you can fit into your work day. If you're going to go to the office or do whatever, you can go put a store cup before you go to work. But to stand back and look at this home and know just the beautiful moment that is about to occur and you got to play a little piece in that. Tapping into that is what keeps me motivated and going. Every single one.

Absolutely. I love that and it has it's made me feel a bit emotional. I can totally resonate with what you're saying about that feeding. And I love that idea of the grandparents, the grandmothers, being able to tap into that family, oh, this new birth and the excitement around it.

Yes. And it's a time thing too, so it doesn't take that much to make a baby bundle and put a stork out and working, that's something we work with people on. What they charge for their store rentals. What I know we can get what the areas are, that kind of thing. But if you could go spend, that's the idea of business. The less time you spend doing something, the more money you make. And that's how the product was made. Anything that I felt took me more time. We created a new way to do it so that it took less time. Now store rental takes me depending what the drive is, but a store could take four minutes to put on a lawn. And the payback for that is incredible. It's an incredible way. And if you're grandma and you're in a retirement stage but you still want to do something, but the nine to five is just not for you, this plays into her life perfectly. If your mom and you have a little baby and you need to get this around nap time and feedings and all that stuff, this plays in perfectly for you. You make it. You make your installs work for what works for you. And then if you get to a point that you really like hustling them storks you do like I do when you run a crew. And then you don't have to worry about what works for that daytime schedule, you have someone to go put out a store.

I love that. So they got the option of, I can be essentially self employed doing this, or I can actually build a business with the team around it as well.

Exactly. And for me, that's how it started. It started with I wanted to be able to do something and make vacation money. And that was really like I wanted to get us to Disney and that was how it started. And then I was like, wow, wait a second. This was a couple of Disney trips and this is fast and this is easy and I can do it better. And then it just evolved. And now here we are with this beautiful product, but we also sell the yard cards. And I think that's something that you spoke about that wasn't as much seen either. So the reason I promote Storks harder and the name of the company is Storks rather than like yard cards is because I believe if you are going to take that next step in a business, the Stork is the strategy behind it because you get the parents at birth and then yard cards are birthday. So now you've created a sustainable way to buy your next inventory piece. You're not buying a ton of inventory hoping for the best. You get in at a low cost rate. A two store is $1,500. You really can't start a new business for anything less than that. Honestly. You can get one store for 900. So 900, you can give it a shot and try a business in that way. And then yard cards come naturally next. If this works for you. Now you have your market for first birthday, you go from there. Now you walk with your customers along. We do anniversary. I do signs for cancer, like finishing cancer treatment. A lot of stuff going out right now for breast cancer awareness. We work with nonprofits, so anniversaries, retirement, anything you can celebrate. And that's the business that you get into. You get into the business of being able to tap into joy all day long and that's what life is about. So my local company is called Days to Remember, and people get it confused. That means that we're celebrating. It's not a day to remember, it's days to remember. And the meaning behind that is that every day is a day to remember. You take that moment to make it one. And that could be finishing cancer treatments. Yes. The negative is that there's cancer. The positive today is that you ring the bell and you finish treatment. So it's really being present to what this life is. And that's the kind of business I wanted to be a part of. And now we're trying to create that environment for other people.

Fantastic. I want to go back to something that you said, which is that the stalk is the strategy. Now, I have to say that is a phrase I never thought I'd say. Just listen to what Bobbi said. The stalk is the strategy. It's the entry point. It's the easy sale. It's the thing that allows you to create a customer, create a client, and then that client can be a client for life. So every year, every new child, every anniversary, people get older and things happen. And then of course, you got the referrals from those clients as well. So I can so see how this business could be a snowballing effect.

It's a unique thing too, because that entry point of the customer, if your customer entry point is the store, they're not going to forget you because of what that stork is. You make this bond. I can go as far to say, I'll never forget my labor and delivery nurse. She stood with me. I will never forget some of the things she said and how she just was there and coached me through. I will not forget that woman. And it was five minutes of her work day. We play a similar part in that memory that people that endorphin release when they start remembering the day they bring home their baby is that store. So why would they go with any other birthday company? Why would they go with anybody else? To help celebrate the baby that you helped bring home and celebrate. You've made the choice. Now it's a lifetime customer. As long as you do it right. Customer service is everything. The product is going to carry you so far. The customer service teams make that connection.

Absolutely. That means attracting the right people to this business is key, isn't it? I'm right in saying that when you take on somebody to buy your products, they have an exclusive territory, don't they?

Correct. So I'm picky this comes back to that birth hierarchy again, right? I'm picky, and I'm a little controlling in this. When I created the store, I didn't create the Stork in this wholesale business to become a millionaire. That wasn't the sole focus. The money comes after what the passion is. The reason I created this was to bring purpose and almost it's like legacy for me. Struggled to have that baby. I have that baby, and the Storks are my second baby in that way. So I want the right village. I want the right people. I want this in the right hands. And the only way to do that was to make them licensee, not to just sell this out to the general market on Amazon. That wasn't what this product was meant to be. It's meant to be exclusive. It's meant to be in that way. And so what we do is we schedule a phone call with our want to be licensee. We call the licensee a store handler. Again, store handler central. So we call them a store handler. And we have cute templates and everything, talking about, like, deliveries of stores. So we pass all that on, which really connects to what being a store handler is. And we have a phone call, and it's informational for them to learn what our pricing and our strategy, but it's also for us to learn about them to make sure that it's a cohesive fit. Because I want my store handlers to be successful, and I want it to be the right person for this type of work, because not everybody is meant to do that. And if dollars are the only thing driving you, the only thing it will not work for.

You think that applies in most situations.

I think it's a lost art, though. I think people don't realize I hear a lot of that people hate their job and all, I got to go to work on Monday, and I say that's really sad because it's always a choice. No matter what your job is, it's always a choice what you're doing. And you should find something you really love. I get up in the morning. I can't wait. I'm excited every day. And so I feel sad for the culture that hasn't found that.

Absolutely. I think one of the things, whether people are in a business that isn't working for them or they're in a career that isn't working for them, the things remember, human beings, we can move around with legs or other means. If we don't even have legs, we can move. We don't have to stay in one spot. If a business isn't working, we can do things to fix it. If you're in a career that doesn't work, you can change jobs, you can change careers, and it's not necessarily going to happen tomorrow. But imagine being in the same. Position in three years time. So I'm a creative, a lot of my clients are creative. This is a mistake I made in the beginning of my business and I want to get things done fast. Fast, thinker fast, mover fast, action taker. I want to get things done fast. So doing the foundations means having to slow down, but there are times where we have to slow down in order to speed up. And the thing is that when people don't do that, then a year, two years, three years from now, they actually end up being in exactly the same position as they are now. It's almost like they're running on a treadmill.

Yeah. The chaos that comes with that too, it's not so much the action you're taking, it's why am I taking this action? And I think that's just the thought process and that comes with that mind body spirit thing again, like, really being mindful of what you're going in and doing. I really would like to have a six pack. Is that going to happen tomorrow? No, I have to put the work in today, one day at a time. And in a year's time, two years time, hopefully that's the end goal with that.

Yes, absolutely. We talked about what your number one challenge is right now in your business, and you said it's really getting in front of those right people. So tell me what you've done so far that has worked.

Yeah. So for us right now, social media seems to be the platform. Things like this, like the podcast, I think are going to be a really good thing for us. I think it's people really hearing what we're about, why we do it, how we do it, and then connecting. So they're going to resonate with something I say that lets them know, this is your sign, like, not to be literal, your sign that this could be for you. So for us, social media, we've noticed that the most powerful things are when we're actually just showing our day to day, where I get on and I'd give a few minutes of, hey, this is what I'm thinking right now. And people somehow connect to that because it's authentic, it's real, it's not sales pitchy, like, get the storks today, it's going to change your life. It's not that. And people feel that. I think we're in a different age of marketing and how people want to be sold to. And it's not about selling for us, it's about serving. And I feel if I'm following what God has put in my heart, that the rest is coming, it evolves, it's what I'm meant to be doing. And so I think the right people just need to see it.

And I like what you're saying about it's not selling, it's serving. And that definitely is a philosophy that I would have. If you're having the right conversations with people, then a sale ought to be a natural outcome. Of that, the minute you feel you're selling, the other person feels sold to and that creates the tension. It creates the pressure that is actually negative. So that's actually off pushing for the person receiving it. And I think it reduces the confidence of the person who's perpetuating it in a way as well. I'm a firm believer of if you have the right messaging, the right marketing, the right sales process in place, then that will never happen. I think you have a similar philosophy, Bobbi. So one of the things that strikes me, I shared some resources with you before we spoken here today. What were your insights from those?

So I really love the last video you sent me about Creative Flow and being in that. And that resonated very much for me in terms of how your time just slips through your fingers. You don't even realize when you're in that mode that three 4 hours may have gone by. And then the part about having your team and working with your team to get them in Creative Flow, that is very powerful because if not, you spend your day putting out fires. And when I'm having one of those days I say to my team, I've been putting fires out all day and they just know what that means. And that's because we're not all in the Creative Flow, we're not all connected. It's just chaos. So avoiding those days is main goal. But yeah, the video on Creative Flow really hit home for me.

Great. And I think one of the key things there is what worked for you in building up days to remember your local business might not be the same strategies that are going to work for the people that you take on.

Exactly right on point. We're in different areas, we're in different states. There's a lot to take into consideration. We're different beings, right. Like we talked in the beginning about how my experience at 14 is how my work days are. What led me to this in a way, not knowing, but uniquely did, someone else has a different being and experience of life. So it's not a cookie cutter. You can take this, apply this and you're going to be having the same success I am here in New Jersey. It's different for each person. The process I don't want to say the process is or isn't because there's truth and nontruth to that. I can't summarize the word to that. That's a better description.

But yeah, because everybody's people have got different strengths and personalities. And you mentioned before about strengths and weaknesses. And so with the right structures in your business and in your licensees businesses, that is about structuring their business around their natural strengths and their team members, if they decide to go that route, to allow them to make their weaknesses irrelevant. And it's interesting, I don't know whether there's ever been a time when you took somebody on who you thought was going to be successful, but maybe they weren't as successful as you thought.

So when we do recruiting, I've moved to more of a model that's not so much always around what the business needs because sometimes you will overlook somebody who's going to bring something to your business that you're not even considering yet because you just didn't listen. It's really about a listening skill and not fitting people into boxes. So if you have a person like for us, we have a lot of work that gets done here or home base. We have a lot of work that gets done out on the field. So I can't take somebody who wants to be on the field and fit them perfectly into the stuff that needs to be done at the home base because that's what the business needs. You have to figure out, okay, let's structure the hours correctly and put these people where they're passionate, where they do good for me, where they don't need as much of me, where it doesn't require me to leave my day to day to take care of these buyers. And that's how we're doing recruitment. So, yes, I have brought on somebody and thought they were going to be the perfect candidate for the need of the business and very quickly find out that's not going to work. And it's hard. It's hard because you have this need, it needs to be fulfilled. But sometimes they shine through in a way that's, okay, this isn't going to work, but we can put them over here, and this is better than I anticipated over here, and this is working for everybody. So, yeah, it is about making my weaknesses basically irrelevant. They don't matter here because I'll find someone who can do it better.

Exactly. Then it's the same for your licensees as well. When you were looking at the Creative Flow, you have seen the ignition compass and the different profiles. Is there a particular kind of person that you found tends to be more successful as a licensee?

Yes, I think that the person who's going to take initiative is that person. The person that's not afraid of what failure means. And I talk about that in my intro call a lot with them. If you are afraid, you need to get over that before you make the purchase. Because a lot about starting a business, no matter if you're doing it with storks or purses or makeup or anything, is you have to get over what is fear and what is success. You alone determine success. Nobody can tell me that I failed. Nobody can tell me I succeeded. I determined that. And they have to understand that is the same thing. And that falls into all of the things. It falls into your family work life balance, it falls into revenue, it falls into how you feel when you go to work every day. All of those touch points are determined failure and success, which is up to you, the thing is that if you're a person who sits back and lets the world come to you and you deal with it as the world comes to you, then entrepreneurial ship and starting a business and getting storks is not for you. This is not for you. You know that right away, because you should be working for somebody who has already done the things and will continue to do the things and just keep bringing it to you. You have to be willing to put yourself out there. And so that's around a lot of the coaching we do very early on with them about how are you putting yourself out there, what is uncomfortable about that? What is comfortable about it? I know if I'm having a very comfortable day, I'm not stretching myself out of what I can do today. Growth is uncomfortable. Growth sometimes hurts. It's uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable space to put yourself out there.

It's part of it, though, unlike drop. Yeah, it's true. Growth definitely can be uncomfortable. I think not growing is more uncomfortable, in my opinion. Not everyone will agree with that.

Some people find that path that works for them, and they just wake up every day, and they do this path, and to each their own. That works for them, and that works for what their experiences and their life has brought them. People that seek entrepreneurial ship, that's not working for you. The reason you're up in the middle of the night searching Pinterest and Google, how to work from home, how to have on your own schedule, I need this because that nine to five or whatever, that path is not working for you. It's broken. It's not for you. So you have to understand you as a person, I think, to seek the right professional career that you want to go into a lot of self understanding.

Absolutely. Now, one of the other trainings I sent to you as well was one last talk about what often isn't working in marketing for small businesses.

Yes. The first video. Right. The gentleman. Okay. So I'll tell you what I loved about this video, and he flipped it, and I said I would contact that daycare. Yes, I would as a mom, because of how hard it hit to the emotional intelligence of your audience, not the sales piece. The need is already there. If they're looking for daycares, they're looking for daycares. When you hit that emotional core of a mother of, you're going to take care of my little one, and that is what you're promoting. Top line. Now I'm contacting you. That's it. And I thought, well, that's beautiful. There it is.

This is what you need to do with your business as well. So when I look at your website, there are things that you talked about that I'm not seeing reflected on the website.

Yeah. Website is undergoing transformations as we speak. That's my thing, to get off and finish the about me from this call. But yes, our website can definitely speak more to the emotional core because all of my business is about that emotional piece, that emotional intelligence, and then links into how you make revenue from that.

What is store handler central's market dominating position that sets it apart from your competition and that is tapping into those emotional hot buttons of the licensees you want to be attracting.

Yeah, so we have gone about doing it around motherhood and I'm not sure that's working for us. I think that there is a piece to be said about that. I think it's not the whole slogan. I think the disconnect that happens sometimes when people think that I started this business as a mother is that the professional educational background is not there. And I hate that's a stigma in this world and that's what it is. But I think it exists. So we are dealing with that currently on how do we appeal to the correct audience without losing that emotional pool in which this exists for, but having more of that edge that people understand that we know what we're doing.

So are you saying you're looking for people who actually may currently be in a career?

Yeah, they could be. You could currently be in a career and do this, no problem. You won't do it full time, but that's exactly how it starts. You get in, you do it before work, after work, you like it, it starts filling that cup. And maybe your work life right now fills your cup enough that you're like, I'm just doing it for extra income and because I love the feeling it gives me after work or before work. And that's enough for you. Vacation money, car money, whatever that next thing, get new siding, whatever that thing is. But it also might be that pivot for you where you can't leave that nine to five because you need that revenue, but it's not working for you. You're the person on Google, you're the person looking for that opportunity that feels like a unicorn. And here it is. Give it a shot and as you love it and you start investing, that extra hobby time that you have is now around building a business. It's hard work. It's hard work to make that pivot from the job you need to the job you want. But if you have that initiative we talked about, that's where this comes in. You spend the time, you do the energy and time in that and then you're able to make that transition. And it's a way to make a transition without fully stepping out of what you already are comfortable in.

It feels to me like this. On the one hand, you've got what sets you apart from other providers and on the other hand, you've got what sets you apart from different opportunities. So this is really different stages of the buyer's journey. So the first one is where they're not even that aware they have a problem. Or they think, well, that's just how life is. Most of the people I know are unhappy in their jobs. We did for the weekend. And so to actually bring to their awareness, did you know that you can actually do XYZ? You don't have to stay in your job. And I think it sounds to me as well to track the licensees who don't have that fear of failure, who will push to put themselves out there. You really want people who actually are already successful and that identify as successful. Even if there's a bit of imposter syndrome, they know that they are accomplished, they achieve things, and they've done that because they are proactive. And even if they fear failure, they go for things. So that it's, that message, isn't it? I think looking at what are the pain points of those people, I think that's where you've got to start. So is it around stress? Is it around work life balance? Maybe they're in a toxic culture or they have a bullying boss. The thought of being their own boss is going to be so appealing for them because of that. So I think exploring and maybe looking at your current licensees, who has come from that kind of a background, and really go and talk to them again from this perspective to find out or what was it that really made them start looking? Or even if they quite often with this first stage of awareness people come across by accident, they're not necessarily searching. The second stage is where they've got clearer on what the problem is and that then they're actually searching for a solution. So that's where you get to educate them more about the problem and this is where it's helping them to really see. And I think your own story can be really powerful in this, but maybe it's also about some licensees stories as well. So that Daniels was in this toxic environment, what was that like? Oh, my God, it was terrible. I used to have cold, clammy hands when I woke up in the morning and thought about going to work is tapping into those emotional hot buttons. So also educating them on what they should be looking for in a business, because there are so many opportunities out there that are rubbish and people have no idea. And they come across something, they get excited about this and they go for it. And then they find themselves a year, two years down the line, and they realize this doesn't work either, wow, this franchise company is taking too much money, or they promised all this marketing and they're not delivering, or, I've set up on my own and I don't know what to do. So really educating them on what is it that they don't know that they need to be asking. And then you've got where they're actually, okay, I've made a decision. I want to do this now is a question of who am I going to go with? I think this is where talking about the distinctions between you and the other provider, your competitors for licensees, is really key. And I know from our conversation there's a whole host of things that you have done to make your product better, to make your processes better, which is brilliant because I get a lot of the time when I'm working with clients, I'm having to help them to innovate those things. You've already done a lot of that innovation from what I can tell. There may be opportunities to do more. I'm sure over time there will be. But what I'm seeing is that this is not spelled out. I'm not seeing that in your messaging. I think that's a great opportunity for you. Now, quite often when I'm talking with businesses and I can show them, okay, look, here are some different ways that you can grow your business. If we increase these different areas by just a small percentage, it actually can have a massive impact for your business. And so your market dominating position is a huge lever in that because it's one of those foundational strategies. So when we look at the five steps where we got foundations, more leads, more conversions, more transactions and more profit, then the market domination position is part of the foundation. So it affects the other four areas. And so if there's a strong market dominating position, then that has a massive impact on everything else. And so actually a strong market domination position can increase the business revenues by as much as 40, 50, 60%. So even if you did nothing else differently, it just makes everything else work so much better. I think for you that I think there's something about looking at what you're communicating when for the different stages of that bio journey, it will filter through all the way through your market dominating position, then obviously, when it comes to who they're going to go with, which business, a which business. And if I am going to go with a yard sign store business, then this is the one I'm going to go with.

Yeah, everything you're saying because it's like very clear. I could write, I can sit here and write out ten different things. The product was made because of the holes in the current system and because of the fact that there is a demand for this, that there's not enough choices. People are choosing a product that's 40 years old and someone saying they've been in business or been doing something for 40 years is a great sentiment. It means you're doing something right. But if you haven't evolved with the 40 years, that leaves a lot of room and opportunity for the next modern product, which is what we've done. So what you're saying about communicating the certain things at those stages, like hits really home and going to be typing up soon as we got off about what we need to put on the website that makes us different here. Yeah, a lot of great things.

And I think this in terms of the marketing method that you were asking about, I think those take second place compared to what we've just discussed.

Yeah, agree. Because the marketing has to be around already. What we have before the platforms are as much and then we might see different transactions on those platforms based upon the messaging.

Right now, I do have a couple of questions for you because I think there's a couple of quick wins. So number one is, do you have a list of people who you thought would have been great but for whatever reason they didn't go ahead and sign up?

Yes.

Okay, so with your new market dominating position, go back and revisit those people. Okay. And then the other thing I wanted to ask is, with your current licensee, do you have any referral scheme, affiliate scheme in place for them?

Not currently, no.

I think that would be a really great way to go because they're the kind of people who you want to attract more of and they're likely to know more people like them that live in different geographical areas that could do the same thing. And I can imagine that. Would you agree that your best license fees do you find they tend to be more extroverted, more introverted? Are they grinded, detailed people?

Yeah. So my detailed people excel more because they are paying attention to that detail. And that comes down to the customer service of their end user, which is important. The details are important enough.

So there may be grounded, sensational people from the cocoa standard. So they are typically those more grounded, detailed people. They're great at cultivating existing relationships, so they probably have got strong relationships with people in their lives that they may be able to refer to you.

Yeah. And I would say that's factual because I have a close relationship with all of them. They follow me on social, as do I. So I'm seeing Dally. What's going on? And if I have suggestions, you can see they have my cell phone number that if they're struggling with something they're trying to do that they can throw me a text and be like, hey, here's a video, hey, here's this. I can help them along the way because I know what it was like to figure it out. And I want them to have less of the figure it out and more of the doing. But they are very connected people to their relationships and family friends, I would say almost all of them.

So I think that's something without it costing you a lot, but being able to rewards them for you. Signing up someone who's appropriate, I think that will encourage your family feel because they'd be like, yepy, my cousin in the next stage. They signed up. I'm going to get to see them more. Do you have any gatherings where you bring people together? I know obviously we've come into the.

Pantry so since we all are in different states, we keep a pretty good distance. We don't currently. What we're hoping to do in the next three years is kind of like a longer strategy is that we would actually be able to have conferences where people can come and see the product in person and do it in a city that kind of the states surround. Like I'm in New Jersey so I have Delaware and PA very close that I could attract that kind of thing where they would be able to see the product. People that want to take part in training sessions would be able to do that because we do a lot of training videos and that's a high request. The storks are very easy. I can teach someone how to do a stork in literally minutes. I made it that way. Birthday is a little bit harder. That's why I also recommend they get in with the stores and scale up to that because it gives you time to watch, content to learn content, to have conversations with me, that putting your yard sign up sounds not complicated until your yard sign is blowing down and you're going back, which then is loss of money and time. And there's a lot of pieces to that next phase, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Have you done any trade shows?

No. So we are just starting to open back up with the trade show thing here, craft fairs and whatnot are going on here, which is a good local market but not so much my national side. But trade shows would be, I think an interesting place to adventure into.

Yeah. Here in the UK, I'm sure they have them in the States as well. They have franchise trade shows. So there's actually franchise bodies. Now I know you're licensing versus a franchise model but I would definitely explore those because the people who go to those, they want to set up a business and they don't want to do it on their own.

Yeah, and I think that's where we fall into a unique spot because a franchise here is anywhere from 15,000. 15,000 is low, like low if you find a franchise in that way. So we're not exactly franchising. I'm just giving them all the knowledge that I know with your product because I want them to be as successful as possible with that product. So yeah, I think like minded people might be very interested in a much lower start up for what they might be able to do and still know that they don't have to pay royalties down the road and that they are able to expand this maybe in a way that's all theirs. And I think that's important when starting a business too because I would hate to be locked into what a franchise would make me do at this point.

I think one of the interesting things is the people who are attracted to franchises, they're often the people, generally speaking, are not very innovative, and so they love the idea of a business in the box now. They don't realize they actually still need to do certain things. Even when we get all the tools, they still have to differentiate themselves from their competitors and all the rest of it. You having a really strong market dominating position for stock handle central. It's also about their market dominating position as well. You're able to actually give them that, and I think a lot of franchisors don't have that. And so they actually send their franchisees out into the marketplace, and they do end up competing on price where as if they had a strong market domination position that wouldn't happen. So by you doing that, then not only does that help you attract more of the right licensees, but that actually will feed through into the marketing that your licensees does. Yeah, I would definitely look at where are the places that you can advertise, get PR, and show up and have conversations with people where they're already at that point where they're, okay, I don't want to be doing this job anymore. I want to have a business, but I want something that's already been created for me. So to me, that's kind of big place to hang out. And I'm sure there's probably some social media strategies you could do also by following those kinds of accounts and connecting with the people who are following those accounts as well.

Yeah, most definitely. And we are strategizing social media wise and blogging for SEO purposes and stuff around that. But the trade show piece is getting in front of people is a big thing, I think, for us.

Yeah, absolutely. And then another strategy that's often overlooked is joint ventures. So when I'm working with my clients, we start looking at what would people buy before, during, or after they would buy from you and look to create relationships with those people. And there's a kind of whole like, with the market domination position, there's a whole process to go through and really uncover that properly, to be able to identify it and articulate. It the same with joint ventures that actually work. So a lot of people create partnerships, but they're just not very effective, and they go, oh yeah, we tried that. Or actually, yeah, we've done this with this business over here. And yeah, it works like gangbusters. But they never occur to them to go and do that again. With other businesses, it's looking at who are the people who your licensees are also going to buy from or are already buying from. Right. Might even be thinking about the grandparents. So for some people, it might be, who do people talk to when they're starting a business? Can you create partnerships with those people? I would also look at. What do grandparents do when they have an empty nest? Who do they tend to buy from? There's probably magazines. Maybe there's networks or events they go to. I think there's actually probably two different angles from that as well. And it takes a while to set up, like just identify one joint venture partner, work out the approach, do a test run. Like typically working with clients. When I'm helping them do that, it takes two, three months to put that in place. But once you put in place, you can rinse and repeat. And if you do it well, then those joint venture partners, you also rinse and repeat with each one.

Yeah.

Okay.

We're doing that locally and it is it's a two to three month process for what we are putting in place there.

Yeah, exactly. So I think that's something you can do for stock handled under Central as well.

Yeah, most definitely.

So we got some strategies, we got some tactics. When you got the strategies, when you got the messaging right around your market dominating position, and then you got some things you can do to help you get that in front of more people. It's also more significant for you. In our conversation here today, Bobbi.

There was a lot, but if I had to name the one, I think the reminder of what's important for the content and on the website just when people are landing there, I think that it's an overall strategy, but it's a tactic I can take instantly right from this conversation and move forward with. That's a win for us.

Fantastic. And as you have seen in the training I sent, you got to be able to answer certain questions. You've got to really be able to be set apart from the competition in what you're saying. It's not enough to be different from your competitors. You need to be saying things that.

They'Re not hard in this where we are here in this, like what you're saying about the market domination. So we do have a very unique platform in this area of that. It's a need and it's not there's not nearly enough.

Absolutely. Great. I wish you all the best in doing this. Bobbi, thank you so much for sharing your story here. I think it's a very exciting proposition. And yeah, I'm curious, if you're in the UK or Europe and you've seen businesses like this, let me know. And in fact, maybe there's a whole new market for you over here, Bobbi.

We would love it.

Let's dominate the US first. Fantastic. So where can people find out more about you, Bobbi?

So our website is the best place to go the storecamblercentral.com, and then there's the ability to put in your information and we ask that you do put in your zip codes or your territory because we do only sell to one person within a 25 miles radius. So that information helps us get back to you within 24 hours to let you know hey, it's available. Hey, it's not. Check back with us next year kind of thing and then we schedule a call from there. Few minute call just to learn more about you. When you learn more about us and see if it's a mutual beneficial next.

Step, I look forward to hearing how you get on.

Sounds great. Thank you so much.

You're very welcome.

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